Summary: Attempts to put Mono in GNOME still exist (Xamarin behind it) and the openwashing of .NET continues months after the Big Lie

MONO has been a thorn in the side of Free software for nearly a decade, shortly after it had been conceived by a Microsoft fan who used it to promote Microsoft APIs with associated patent risk and lock-in. It wasn’t too shocking to see the Microsoft-tied Novell joining in the ‘fun’. We have spent many years fighting back against Mono, which was an embodiment of Microsoft’s interests and an attempt to assimilate FOSS to Microsoft. The Microsoft proxy now known as Xamarin is still threatening to bring Microsoft APIs to GNOME. We thought GNOME had already salvaged itself from this risk, but the risk persists and it needs to be stopped. It was already defeated before (GNOME was close to becoming Mono-dependent whereupon we wrote many articles to create protests).

The unfortunate thing is that Microsoft bamboozled many journalists into stating that .NET is "open source" (it is not) and a Dice site is trolling again using that same old .NET spin. Do not let the lie be spread so easily. Microsoft’s .NET is proprietary and it still is a patent threat that favours Windows and Microsoft, i.e. proprietary software with back doors.

“It is a propaganda campaign just like “Scroogled” and the goal is to crush software freedom, not just companies like Google.”IDG recently hired a longtime Microsoft booster, Mary Branscombe, letting her spread these lies every week or so. She was openwashing Microsoft the other day as well as several times last month. She used to write in the CBS-owned ZDNet (very poor-quality Microsoft ads disguised as ‘articles’), but now she escapes the boundaries of tabloids and is really doing a lot of damage not only to Free software but to truth itself.

This whole ‘movement’ which tries to ‘sell’ Mono to GNU/Linux, promote the notion that .NET is ‘open’ and Microsoft is wonderfully ethical needs to be crushed. It is a propaganda campaign just like “Scroogled” and the goal is to crush software freedom, not just companies like Google. █

• First Impressions of Gnome 3

• Gnome 3.12 to be delayed to sync with Wayland release

• Mutter-Wayland 3.11.5 Adds Support for Sub-Surfaces

  The GNOME Project has announced today, February 5, that development version 3.11.5 of the Mutter-Wayland software is now available for download and testing, bringing various bugfixes and improvements.

• GNOME 3.12 Might Be Delayed Until Wayland 1.5

• Slight adjustment to the 3.12 schedule

• GNOME 3.12 Might Be Delayed for Beginning of April Because of Wayland 1.5

  The upcoming and highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is supposed to be released on March 26, 2014. However, it appears that the entire release cycle might be delayed by approximately a week, because of the Wayland 1.5 release.

  However, the bad news (for GNOME developers) is that all the GNOME 3.11.x milestones will be delayed as well in order to avoid longer freeze periods. As you might know, GNOME 3.12 will be the first ever release of the controversial GNOME desktop environment to fully support the modern Wayland display server.

• GNOME: Slight adjustment to the 3.12 schedule

  Writing to inform you that the GNOME release team is pondering moving the date for 3.12.0 out by approximately a week, to align the schedule with the Wayland release plans (a 1.4.91 release including all the xdg-shell API we need is planned for April 1). The latter 3.11.x milestones would be shifted as well, to avoid lengthening the freeze period unnecessarily.

• Fedora 20 Gnome 13.10 Desktop Review

  After a few weeks toying around with Fedora 20, I thought it was time to share my findings. Because Gnome 13.10 brought a long list of changes, I opted to download the Gnome Desktop version of Fedora 20. This release brings a vast list of features and updates and here you can see them for yourself.

• Is GNOME the best Linux desktop?

  I think GNOME is mostly a “love it” or “hate it” kind of desktop these days. The folks who love it defend it passionately while the ones who hate it will deride it with their last breath. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of middle ground in the GNOME Wars.

• You Can Say What You Want but GNOME Is the Best Linux Desktop, Here’s Why

  I’m writing the following article from the perspective of a normal user that uses Linux (Arch Linux at the moment) exclusively, both at home and work, for over 12 hours daily, with GNOME 3 as the main desktop environment. A users with over ten years experience in open source desktops, years during which I’ve tested any known desktop environment/window manager.

• GNOME’s Web Browser Introduces a New History Window

  The GNOME Project has announced a few days ago that Epiphany 3.11.4 web browser is available for download and testing, as part of the recently released GNOME 3.11.5 unstable desktop environment.

• Gedit 3.11.3 Text Editor for GNOME Improves the New Interface

  The development team behind GNOME’s default text editor application, Gedit, has announced recently that another milestone of the upcoming Gedit 3.12 release is available for download and testing.

• GNOME Maps App Features Much Smoother Animations

  GNOME Maps 3.11.5 introduces much smoother goto animations, avoids an unnecessary zoom-out at end of goto animations, “exact” is displayed instead of “0 km2” if accuracy area is less than 1, makes the gnome-maps executable a real binary, fixes a compiler warning, and updates recent added time on re-visits.

• GNOME Videos (Totem) Gets Overhauled

• GNOME Software App Allows You to Install Local Packages

  GNOME Software 3.11.5 introduces a concept of rating confidence for each app, adds a file handler that allows the application to install local packages, allows each plugin to define the dependencies on other plugins, the “Picks” on the overview are now automatically generated, and a star widget is now displayed for each application, in the category panel.

• How to Make Web Apps Shine in Gnome 3.10

• (GNOME) Videos is here!

  It’s been some time in the making, with the redesign work started a couple of release cycles ago, but we finally reached a state where it’s usable, and leaps and bounds easier to use than the previous versions.

• GNOME’s Virtual Filesystem Reaches Version 1.19.5

  GVFS 1.19.5 sets etag::value for FTP, sets infinite timeout for enumerate response for daemon, removes GVfsUriMountInfo, forces openpty(3) on BSD for SFTP, rates limit progress callbacks for daemon, and properly removes socket_dir for gvfsdaemon.

• GNOME Software App Adds Ardour to the Featured List

• gThumb 3.3.1 Image Viewer Has Better Support for RAW Images

  gThumb 3.3.1 is the first maintenance release of the development 3.x series. It now employs the dark theme, a GtkHeaderBar is now used instead of a toolbar and a menu, adds better support for RAW images, a frame is now displayed around an image in the image viewer, and zoomed images are presented in a better quality.

• GNOME Boxes 3.11.4 Adds a Logo for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

• GNOME Chess 3.10.3 Fixes Various Annoying Bugs

THE “BIG THREE”, namely GNOME, KDE, and XFCE, are not the only games in town. Now we have Defora [1], Moonlight [2], and Ome [3], not to mention LXLE [4,5] and Enlightenment, which recently released E18 [6-8] and will soon release E19 [9]. There are several other desktop environments that continues to be developed, whereas several perished over the years.

Speaking for myself, I recently switched from KDE to Enlightenment on the desktop where I write articles. Enlightenment is a fantastic desktop environment even for relatively new desktops, especially if memory becomes a constraint and speed can use some significant improvement. There are bugs, sure, as well as ‘missing’ features, but this desktop environment which I used regularly over a decade ago is still very light and powerful. Without it, I would have no choice but to cope with bloat, pretty much like in Microsoft and Apple land.

People who claim that GNU/Linux offers not much of real choice because it’s all about KDE, GNOME and some desktop bundles that are no longer maintained (or have been stale for a decade or two) are simply not looking hard enough. It can be rewarding for everyone to experience many environments on mobile (GNU/)Linux and even on desktops (like Unity); the more, the merrier. This attracts develops because it fosters creativity and self expression. To emancipate ourselves from GUI tyrannies (Apple is the worst in that regard) we need to explore alternatives environments, just as we do in many walks of life. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Defora Provides Yet Another Open-Source Desktop

   If you have not yet found the perfect open-source desktop match for your needs, the desktop environment born out of DeforaOS is yet another option. This desktop environment is built using GTK2 and part of a larger effort to provide “ubiquitous, secure and transparent access to one’s resources” and to work regardless of form factor.

2. Moonlight: Yet Another Linux Desktop Environment

   Moonlight is a project still in its early stages and likely will fade away like the many other third-party desktop environments with limited manpower and scope. Moonlight Desktop is trying to be a lightweight desktop for the Raspberry Pi and other low-powered, low-end, old devices — similar in scope to Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, etc. They really don’t seem to be far along at all right now and are still working towards an appearance for their desktop.

3. Ome: A New Cross-Platform Desktop Environment

   Originally the developer behind Ome was set out on making his own operating system and was thinking of using LLVM IR for its application binary while making the packages like Android’s APK files. He had posted to the LLVM mailing list last month for feedback on these plans but now today he’s posted a new LLVM mailing list message.

4. LXLE Gives New Zest to Old Machines

   I have not been a happy user of Ubuntu since the shift to the Unity desktop. Even the Lubuntu version has some bothersome Ubuntu traits attached. Enter the LXLE distro with its Lubuntu-less appearance. It provides a Long Term Support advantage over using Lubuntu and has a larger and more useful default application set. Even on poorly endowed hardware, this distro boots in less than 1 minute.

5. LXLE 12.04.4 officially released.

6. Enlightenment 0.18.3 Release Allows the Use of Elementary 1.9 or Later

   The development team behind the Enlightenment project, an open source, powerful, lightweight, and eye-candy desktop environment for the X window system has announced the third maintenance release of the stable Enlightenment 0.18 branch, which includes various fixes and improvements.

7. Enlightenment DR 18 Released

8. Enlightenment DR 0.18 Released

   Just one year after the long-time coming official release of Enlightenment 0.17 (E17), Enlightenment 0.18 has been released!

9. Enlightenment E19 Going Into Feature Freeze Soon

   The freeze for E19 will begin in one month, on 28 Feb 2014. After that point, I am likely to reject most* requests for feature additions, and I will be shifting into release mode.

GNOME Desktop/Shell

• Road to GNOME 3.12 : Overview of GNOME 3.11.4

  Most Linux distros bundle GNOME desktop environment (DE) with even minor version numbers (3.8.x, 3.10.x). Like Fedora was released with GNOME 3.10.3. The version 3.11.2 was available in November but it was not bundled .The reason behind it is that GNOME takes a different approach to their software releases. The odd minor versions (3.9, 3.11) of GNOME are development versions of the subsequent even versions (3.10, 3.12). So the .11 version is roughly an alpha version of the .12 branch.

• GNOME Shell 3.10 Lands In Ubuntu 14.04

  For a while it looked like Ubuntu 14.04 would stick to a GNOME 3.8 world, for the GNOME packages it ships in Ubuntu Linux as newer packages are partially held back by Ubuntu dependencies for their Unity desktop. Previously blocking the GNOME 3.10 update in Ubuntu was the GNOME Control Center, which ended up being forked by Canonical until their own Ubuntu System Settings can be developed.

Alternatives

• Alternative Gnome Shell Theme Examples

  Surely users must be ready for a change from the default Gnome Shell theme by now. I have sampled some of the available Gnome Shell themes on Fedora 20 and now you can see them for yourself. A new shell theme will not change your entire desktop, but it will provide a new look for the activities overview window, and the Gnome indicator applet panel.

• Your choice: Cinnamon or MATE

  I get a lot of queries regarding the difference(s) between the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments. And of course such queries tend to come from those new to Linux and Free Software.

  For the benefit of those class of users, this very brief article summarizes the key difference between these two desktop environments. Nothing technical, just basic stuff that will help those users to better understand what their options are. And because a picture is worth more than a thousand words, there are a couple of galleries to complete the picture.

Applications

• gedit text editor updated with new UI

  GNOME has finally updated the look and feel of their text editor, gedit. The app has been redesigned to match the newer GNOME 3 interface guidelines.

• Epiphany Web Browser Now Uses HTTPS for Google Searches by Default

  The GNOME Project has also announced today that a new development release of the Epiphany 3.12 web browser for the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is now available for download and testing.

  Epiphany 3.11.3 adds HTTPS (secure HTTP) support for both the DuckDuckGo and Google search engines, improves the looks of the location bar and the downloads bar, improves filename suggestion for downloads, and cleans up the style of the about: pages.

• Dconf 0.19.3 Brings Lots of Improvements and Fixes

  Dconf 0.19.3 introduces various improvements in the test coverage area, adds a proper DCONF_ERROR error domain, suppress the GLib deprecation warnings during the build process, correctly handles writability changes in GSettings, displays warnings about missing files only once per source, and it will link to -ldl only if it is required.

• Eye of GNOME 3.11.4 Uses Python 3 for Python Plugins

  The GNOME Project has released the fourth development release towards the Eye of GNOME 3.12 application, which will be the default image viewer for the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.

• GNOME’s Virtual Filesystem Received gPhoto2 Pull Support

  GVFS 1.19.4 introduces pull support for gPhoto2 and implements truncate and seek support for output streams for the DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol.

• GNOME PackageKit 3.11.4 Released with Important Bugfixes

  The GNOME Project has announced a new development version towards GNOME PackageKit 3.12, a graphical user interface (GUI) for the powerful PackageKit software, which will be used in the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.

• Glib 2.39.3 Brings No Major Changes, but Lots of Fixes

  The GNOME development team behind the Glib project, a library used in the GNOME desktop environment, has announced the immediate availability for download of Glib 2.39.3, which introduces lots of fixes.

• GNOME Documents 3.11.4 Renames GNOME Control Center to Settings

  Dubbed Spoilers, the third development version of the upcoming GNOME Documents 3.12 software, the main document viewer of the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, has been made available for testing.

• GNOME Weather App 3.11.4 Fixes RTL Layouts

  The GNOME Project has announced that a second development release towards the upcoming GNOME Weather 3.12 application that will be available in the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is available for testing.

GNOME is a very active project that involves hundreds if even thousands of developers (GNOME is a set of applications, not just a desktop environment/shell). The project’s Bugzilla statistics (not for 2013 alone) reveal about 46,000 open bug reports [1]. In 2013 many bugs are carried on from prior years (including duplicates) and resources for managing them are pooled because several environments are derived from GNOME and they share code (bug fixes can be pushed upstream). Now that 3.11.3 is available for testing [2] and bugs are being squashed [3], new features are added [4], and the underlying framework improves [5] we can expect a good, diverse future for the GNOME family (with about half a dozen branches/forks). Allan Day, a GNOME designer, recently gave an interview [6] and to quote the interviewer, Day’s “design workflow is also wonderfully straightforward and helps to address the concern that good design work can’t be done on Linux.”

GNOME is a simple environment to use. Some try to simplify it further to improve the overall experience (same thing Android backers are doing on phones, desktops, and tablets). GNOME cannot be treated a one-size-fits-all solution because it runs on many different types of devices. It is possibly even simpler to use than Mac OS X and Windows (depending on how they are judged). The GNOME Activity Journal, an important component that simplifies operations and logging, is now approaching version 1.0 [7] (stable) and one pundit asserts [8] that GNOME is the “key to Linux desktop unification”. He makes the common mistake of assuming that lack of diversity would be pleasing to more users and attract more people to GNU/Linux. It’s not so-called ‘fragmentation’ that weakens GNU/Linux on the desktop (in terms of adoption). People typically fail to explore GNU/Linux due to biased information in the corporate media, or complete lack of information. There are other aspects too, including anti-competitive practices.

Uniformity is important within a particular desktop environment (that’s what developer guidelines are for), but it’s not the same across desktop environments, which can vary in order to accommodate the requirements of different types of users (e.g. advanced users as opposed to beginners). Beware those who try to convince everyone in the Free Desktop world that having one “universal” GNU/Linux distribution (with one kernel, one desktop environment, one set of application) is what’s needed. What makes GNU/Linux strong and attractive to developers is diversity, not authority. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. GNOME Ended 2013 With 46k Open Bug Reports

   Earlier this week Andre Klapper shared the annual GNOME Bugzilla statistics for 2013. The GNOME project ended out 2013 with 46,130 open bug reports, compared to 43k bug reports at the end of 2012 or 44k bug reports at the end of 2011. Of the 46k bug reports open at the end of 2013, 25k of them were opened in 2013 while 22k were closed in 2013.

2. GNOME 3.11.3 Is Now Available for Testing

   The third development release towards the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment has been made available for download, bringing many updated core applications, libraries, and updated translations.

3. Glade 3.16.1 UI Designer Repairs Numerous Bugs

4. GNOME Settings Daemon 3.11.3 Adds Bluetooth Killswitch Support

5. Client Side Decoration Improvements Land In GTK+

   These improvements landed for the GTK+ 3.11 development series and will form the basis of the GTK+ 3.12 stable release in March. Overall GNOME 3.12 is shaping up to be an interesting GNOME update with GNOME Shell and Mutter improvements, greater Facebook integration, the GNOME Terminal finally has text rewrap on resizing, and there will be much better support for Wayland.

6. The Linux Setup – Allan Day, GNOME Designer

   Part of the reason GNOME is such a successful project is the focus and dedication of its members. I’ve interviewed a few of them and common strands always emerge — ideas like GNOME as an operating system, GNOME staying out of the user’s way, and GNOME as a way to enhance Linux. Allan, a designer for the project, touches on a lot of these points. His design workflow is also wonderfully straightforward and helps to address the concern that good design work can’t be done on Linux.

7. GNOME’s Zeitgeist Finally Nears v1.0

   The Zeigeist framework that is responsible for much of the logging responsibilities in the GNOME world and powers the GNOME Activity Journal is finally nearing version 1.0. The 1.0 milestone comes after landing a number of improvements recently and after nearly a half-decade of development work.

8. GNOME: Key to Linux Desktop Unification?

   One of the greatest differences between an open source operating systems and those that maintain a proprietary code structure is the flexibility in customizing each one.

   While Windows and OS X offer a set-in-stone desktop environment, Linux enjoys a robust number of desktop environments from which to choose from – including the highly popular GNOME. Some may even argue that having a limited number of desktop environments would allow those distributions to hone in on gaining a larger market share. And perhaps that’s true, though I believe that most Linux enthusiasts chose Linux because of its diversity. In this article, I’ll look at where GNOME came from, where it is now and the end goal I think it’ll reach within the next couple of years.

THE previous post dealt with the state of Wayland in KDE. Well, it’s not just KDE which moves in this direction. The main patron of GNOME, namely Red Hat, is leaving proprietary graphics drivers behind [1,2] (the less, the merrier) and also moving to a more manageable graphics stack. Fedora is improving GNOME 3 and the GNOME Shell [3,4], which it now tied more closely to Wayland [5]. This is significant. With other work which aims to improve the desktop experience (e.g. Systemd [6]) we are bound to see many projects following, and not just direct Fedora derivatives like Korora [7]. The Fedora project is probably the biggest driver of GNU/Linux development, rivalled only by Debian, which still isn’t leaning towards Systemd [8,9]. What Fedora does affects not only RHEL, but also the world’s most used server operating system (close to Debian), CentOS [10].

Watch closely what Fedora is doing because what Red Hat decides on typically becomes a de facto standard for the rest of us. The good news is, the graphics stack in Linux seems to be repelling blobs (with root privileges), which are the most likely component to ever act as a backdoor (unless it already exists). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Fedora 20 Linux: Problems Supporting AMD Video Hardware

   Fedora 20, the newest version of the Linux-based operating system affiliated with Red Hat (RHT), has been out only for a few weeks. But it is already creating challenges for Linux users with AMD graphics hardware, which is not supported in some cases on the new release. It’s a reminder of the way that dependence on proprietary device drivers can drastically hinder open source adoption.

2. Will there really be no AMD Catalyst driver packaged by RPM Fusion for Fedora 20?

3. Fedora 20 Delivers Updated Gnome Software Center

   Fedora 20 delivers a sleek new software manager for the Gnome Shell that is perfectly user-friendly. This new software manager also takes advantage of the header bars introduced with Gnome 3.10. I have taken an extensive look at the re-designed Gnome Software Manager, and now its time to show off the goods.

4. DJANGO UNCHAINED: Don’t let ‘preview’ apps put you off Fedora 20

   If you’re a fan of GNOME 3 and the GNOME Shell, Fedora 20 will be a welcome update. This release sees an upgrade for Fedora’s default GNOME spin, bringing the desktop to GNOME 3.10.

   Fedora’s live desktop CD has used GNOME by default for many years now. Once upon a time that was completely unremarkable. However, since Ubuntu now has Unity, OpenSUSE pours its effort into KDE and Mint has worked hard to divorce Cinnamon 2.0 from GNOME 3, Fedora is, well, just about all GNOME has left these days.

5. GNOME Shell Wayland Benchmarks From Fedora 20

   While an X.Org Server is still used by default on Fedora 20 “Heisenbug”, Wayland has become a viable option for early adopters and developers wishing to work on Wayland software compatibility and/or testing. All the packages are needed on a Fedora 20 installation to launch a GNOME Wayland session and begin working, including support for XWayland in order to run X11-dependent games and applications.

6. KDBUS & Systemd Now Yields A Working System

   Open-source developers this week achieved a pleasant late Christmas present for Fedora users of having a working system with using the in-development Linux kernel DBus implementation (KDBUS) paired with the latest systemd code can now yield a booting system.

7. Interview: Chris Smart of the Korora Project

8. Init wars: Debian inclining towards upstart

9. Debian Still Debating Systemd vs. Upstart Init System

10. Progress Being Made On CentOS 7, Based Off RHEL7

    The CentOS community developers focused on their rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 have already begun playing with the RHEL7 Beta source packages to form CentOS 7.0.

Softpedia’s latest updates on GNOME Desktop development [1-4] show that GNOME is anything but dormant. As Phoronix shows, Fedora is all about GNOME (Red Hat’s default), whereas Ubuntu neglects GNOME as well as other widely-used packages. “Mir Is Still Overwhelmingly A Canonical-Only Affair,” says the headline of one very recent article from Phoronix. Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS Alpha 1 is out [5] and it is still using X.org [6]. Ubuntu, in terms of performance, does not vary widely from Red Hat [7] and Debian [8], it’s just doing its marketing better [9,10]. For those who are fed up with the hype, or those who look for upstream proponents, there’s always Kubuntu to turn to [11] if not the latest Mint Linux [12,13,14] (it has a KDE version) and older stable versions [15,16]. One can easily sense some bit of hostility towards Canonical at Phoronix these days, but it is cleverly disguised and perhaps it is even justified. The FSF has made its lack of support for Ubuntu well known (unlike Torvalds) and in his recent talks Stallman openly urges people not to use Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has been good in many ways, but if someone is eager to move to GNU/Linux, then perhaps it’s better to name or recommend another distribution. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. GNOME Online Accounts 3.11.3 Adds Support for Facebook Photos

2. Epiphany 3.11.2 Web Browser Brings Lots of Goodies for Christmas

   The GNOME Project has announced recently that a new development release towards the Epiphany 3.12 web browser that will be part of the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is now available for download and testing.

3. GNOME Boxes 3.11.3 Improves Detection of GNOME-Continuous Images

4. GNOME’s File Manager Will Be More User-Friendly

   Allan Day, a GNOME designer, posted a few days ago on his blog a very long article about what was coming next in the Nautilus (now known as Files) file manager for the GNOME desktop environment.

   What you will read in this article is a short summary of the new design features that will be implemented in upcoming releases of Nautilus, which will be part of the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.

5. Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS Alpha 1 (Trusty Tahr) Officially Released – Screenshot Tour

   Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS Alpha 1 (Trusty Tahr) has been released and is now available for download and testing. We prepared a screenshot tour to get a sneak peek at the new operating system.

   The best news for the fans of Ubuntu GNOME is that the 14.04 will include a number of GNOME applications from the 3.10 stack.

6. Ubuntu GNOME Will Still Run On X.Org For A While

7. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Benchmarks

   Last week when Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta 1 was released I was already running RHEL7 benchmarks looking at the performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 over RHEL 6.5. In this article for some extra benchmarks to put out over the weekend is a quick comparison of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in its current development state against Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta 1.

8. SteamOS vs. Ubuntu 13.10 – Intel HD Graphics Performance

9. Ubuntu Linux, Edge, Desktop and the Wearable Computing Future

   One of most noteworthy open-source stories of 2013 was the audacious attempt by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux, to crowdfund $32 million in 30 days to fund a next-generation Linux phone.

   It’s an effort that did not reach its target. In a video interview with eWEEK, Shuttleworth described the Ubuntu Edge campaign as a “glorious defeat,” but it’s not the end of the road for Ubuntu’s phone efforts.

   Though Shuttleworth was unable to raise $32 million in 30 days, the Ubuntu Edge campaign was able to raise $12.8 million, which is a non-trivial amount for a crowdfunding effort of any type. He pledged that his company was continuing to push forward in its efforts to build the best converged operating system for developers.

10. Will Ubuntu dominate tablets in 2014?

    Ubuntu’s tablet may dominate the field in 2014. Plus: A SteamOS install guide, and a screenshot tour of Fedora 20 MATE

11. Kubuntu 13.10 – A great alternative to Ubuntu and Windows.

12. Linux Mint 16 KDE and Xfce released

13. Linux Mint 16 “Petra” KDE released!

    KDE is a vibrant, innovative, advanced, modern looking and full-featured desktop environment. This edition features all the improvements from the latest Linux Mint release on top of KDE 4.11.

14. Review: Linux Mint 16 “Petra” Cinnamon + MATE

    This is the second review that I’m doing at the moment. Linux Mint 16 “Petra” came out in MATE and Cinnamon guises recently, so as a fan of Linux Mint, I’ll be reviewing those now. I tried each edition separately on a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

15. Petra backports available in Linux Mint 13

    The most significant improvements in Petra are being backported to Maya.

    Among other things, this gives Linux Mint 13 LTS users access to the following packages:

    MDM 1.4
    Cinnamon 2.0
    MATE 1.6
    The latest versions of mintwelcome, mintstick, mintnanny, mintupload, mintupdate, mintinstall, mintsystem, mintmenu and mintdesktop.

16. Cinnamon 2.0 available for Linux Mint 13, LMDE to receive it soon

    Linux Mint 13 “Maya” users can now avail Cinnamon 2.0 goodness. Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) users will receive a major upgrade known as Update Pack 8, in January 2014.

Summary: The power of deviation as demonstrated by Linux Mint and Linux Deepin, two of the more widely used derivatives of Ubuntu

Linux Mint 16 OEM is finally out [1,2] and it also takes Cinnamon further [3]. Following this celebrated release [4,5] it has been dissected [6] and reviewed [7], sometimes in conjunction with other distributions [8].

“Linux Deepin has something called the Depth Desktop Environment, yet another alteration of GNOME.”Little is being said about Linux Deepin, which is a Chinese derivative of Ubuntu with a lot of potential. Now that China is moving towards independence from Microsoft and other US companies complicit in NSA surveillance we should really pay a lot more attention to Linux Deepin, which is also being dissected [9] and its community expanded on the face of it [10]. Linux Deepin has something called the Depth Desktop Environment (or Deepin Desktop Environment), yet another alteration of GNOME.

Of course there are other independent derivatives of Ubuntu — ones that use Enlightenment, KDE, etc. Those too are needed to ensure diversity and suitability to more potential audiences. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Linux Mint 16 OEM Has Been Officially Released

2. Mint OEMs, Zenwalk’s Return, and Knopper Interview

3. Linux Mint 16 Improves Cinnamon Desktop

   In recent years, the Linux Mint open-source operating system has emerged to become one of the most popular Linux distributions. Linux Mint was founded by developer Clement Lefebvre in 2006, with the goal of being a user-friendly desktop version of Linux. Lefebvre officially released Linux Mint 16, code-named Petra, Nov. 30 with the goal of improving the Linux desktop experience. Linux Mint 16 is based on the Ubuntu 13.10 Linux distribution at its core, with a number of key additions and improvements. While Ubuntu has focused on the development of its own Unity desktop Linux environment, Linux Mint has its own desktop creation, known as Cinnamon. Among the highlights of the Linux Mint 16 release is the latest generation of the Cinnamon desktop. Linux Mint is also available with other desktop environments, including MATE, which is a fork of the GNOME 2.x desktop. The new desktop environments included in Linux Mint 16 aim to offer improved performance and usability to Linux users. Among the new features that Linux Mint 16 provides are new USB formatting and imaging tools that enable users to easily create bootable USB sticks. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some of the new features in Linux Mint 16.

4. Linux Mint 16 Released

5. Linux Mint 16 Has Been Officially Released

   Clement Lefebvre proudly announced a few minutes ago that the final bits of the highly anticipated Linux Mint 16 operating system were available for download.

6. LINUX MINT 16 ‘PETRA’ RELEASED [SCREENSHOTS]

   Linux Mint 16 “Petra”, based on Ubuntu 13.10, was released recently and is available as usual in two editions: MATE and Cinnamon. Let’s take a look at what’s new.

7. Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon Review

8. Linux Top 3: Fedora 20 Beta, Linux Mint 16 RC and Scientific Linux 5.10

   This past week the final release candidate (RC) for Linux Min 16 debuted, with both Cinnamon and MATE desktop editions.

9. Linux Deepin 2013 Available For Download [Video, Screenshots]

   Linux Deepin 2013 has been released with various improvements and enhancements as well as two new applications: Deepin Terminal and Deepin Game Center.

10. Linux Deepin needs your help with the Deepin Localization Project

    It is a Chinese distribution and one of the very few Linux distributions that’s actually bringing something new to the table: From custom apps to a new desktop environment built atop GNOME 3 technologies called the Depth Desktop Environment.

Summary: The world’s most features-rich desktop is coming to a milestone which represents expansion to yet more form factors

KDE SC is approaching its 12^th KDE4 release [1], which brings further improvement [2] not just for desktops [3]. KDE has become a platform for tablets and perhaps phones, not just desktops and laptops. Even home media centers are an area of focus and in places like CERN KDE gets uses scientifically as a kind of server/experiments front end. Based on what we’ve seen on the Web, these efforts from KDE are all fruitful and people are increasingly satisfied with KDE, even those who used to dislike it. Development of KDE continues [4] even if some KDE/Qt applications lose momentum [5] (they cannot die, in part owing to the licence) and new GNU/Linux releases continue to show signs of confidence in KDE; even the bad guys use KDE [6]. GNOME has a new release too [7] and it brings significant improvements [8], which helps show that a decade and a half down the line these two leading desktop environments can coexist and mutually thrive. Now is an excellent time to migrate to GNU/Linux. It’s mature, it’s reliable, it is easy to use, and it’s user-respecting. People no longer should assume that Microsoft is inescapable. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE Ships Third Beta of Applications and Platform 4.12

   KDE has released the third beta of the 4.12 versions of Applications and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing. Your assistance is requested.

2. KDE Applications Get Further Fixes In 4.12 Beta 3

   The third beta of KDE 4.12 was released this week, but for those that missed the news only really are the 4.12 apps being improved in this next KDE desktop release.

3. KDE Plasma Media Center 1.2 Beta Has New Features

   Plasma Media Center, the KDE project to slowly take on the likes of XBMC and provide a nice user-interface for multimedia tasks atop the KDE experience, is up to version 1.2 beta. The 1.2 beta release of Plasma Media Center is packing a number of new features.

4. KDE Commit-Digest for 10th November 2013

5. KDE’s Kdenlive Video Editor Has Gone Dark

   While there’s many Kdenlive fans out there for the KDE-focused open-source video editor, it seems new development efforts around the project have ceased.

6. openSUSE 13.1 KDE

7. GNOME 3.10.2 Has Been Officially Released

8. GNOME Shell 3.11.2 Supports Disabling Browser Plugin

Summary: Why in the world of GNU/Linux and UNIX/BSD, having more diversity is a good thing, not a thing to be feared and rejected

IT HAS long been recognised that cooperation combined with some competition leads to faster development and elimination of weaker concepts/implementations. We see a lot of this in the aviation and automobile industries. Many planes and cars use components from the same suppliers, but they still integrate uniquely in order to compete. Their improvements and integration work set them apart. The Linux Foundation, a unifying force in the world of Linux (kernel) development, says that “Competition Among Open Source Projects Delivers Better Technology Faster” [1]. Remember there even within Linux (and UNIX) there is a lot of competition, e.g. between file systems. There are pros and cons to each candidate and weaker ones cease to be developed.

What people call “Linux” is much more than a kernel; in a practical sense they often refer to Linux/X/GNU/KDE/Mozilla or something along those lines. The abbreviation “Linux” for what would better be described as the Free/libre operating system (not necessarily just GPL-licensed and not necessarily desktops) is so deeply rooted in society that it would be virtually impossible to change now, but let’s look at the desktop layer for a moment, taking into account recent news.

“It is disheartening to see a lot of anger directed at those who conceptualise and then implement their own alternatives which they deem technically better.”GVFS, which causes me much trouble at work, has a new release available for testing [2] and the same goes for GNOME Notes [3]. Cinnamon [4] and Wayland [5] help show that Shell and X are no longer the only game in GNOME town, demonstrating diversity in other layers of the stack too (GNOME does not necessarily run on GNU/Linux, either). GNOME is probably the most widely used Free/livre desktop environment, but over time it becomes easy to see that it branches off in many directions.

When it comes to KDE, which has a lot of power [6] and is actively developed by a very large group [7,8], the same is true. KDE can run on almost any operating system, with varying degrees of compatibility and integration. It’s not just for desktops, either. That’s why KDE was pretty much renamed/rebranded a “Software Compilation” a few years ago. My wife uses KDE because KWin makes it easier to use and it is more visually pleasing. But it’s not for everyone.

Let’s not forget others players like Xfce [9] (usually considered third in popularity) and of course the plethora of tools which make the command line so powerful [10,11,12,13]. On servers where performance comes first, command-line tools are a must.

When the “Free Desktop” expands to other form factors, supports more desktop/interface environments, initialisation systems, file systems, graphical servers etc. we should expect it to evolve faster, not more slowly. The development community grows when diversity increases. It is disheartening to see a lot of anger directed at those who conceptualise and then implement their own alternatives which they deem technically better. It’s not the spirit of GNU to just slag off those who come up with new solutions, seeking to replace — based on merit — what’s currently popular among users. It is okay to criticise those who try to leverage software patents to ban or tax their competitors (like Novell did with Microsoft), but to berate companies for doing GNU/Linux their own way (under copyleft) is worse than a waste of time; it’s very counter-productive and it distracts from the real threats. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Competition Among Open Source Projects Delivers Better Technology Faster

   Today we’re pleased to announce that The Linux Foundation will host the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), the organization dedicated to education and advocacy for KVM. KVM is growing in popularity among businesses and open source communities like OpenStack with a 50 percent increase in deployments this year, according to IDC. We will work with OVA to extend education and advocacy that supports and helps advance the important work of this developer community.

2. GVFS 1.19.1 Is Now Available for Testing

   The first development version towards the GVFS 1.20 application for the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment was announced a few days ago, introducing various fixes and improvements.

3. The First Development Release of GNOME Notes 3.12 Arrives

   The first development release towards GNOME Notes 3.12, a nice and simple application designed to create, view, and edit notes on the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, has been announced on October 27, 2013.

4. Cinnamon Desktop: Breaks with GNOME, finds beefed-up Nemo

   The Cinnamon Desktop project recently released version 2, a major overhaul of the desktop environment that’s best known as the default option for Linux Mint’s flagship release.

5. Running The Latest GNOME Wayland Shell On Fedora 20

   With the Fedora 20 beta coming up I decided to see where the latest Fedora 20 packages are now at for their support of Wayland and the GNOME Shell Wayland session. In particular, looking at whether the session is still buggy and how the XWayland performance is for Linux gaming.

6. How-to configure keyboard layouts in KDE 4 (video)

7. KDE Commit-Digest for 13th October 2013

8. KDE Commit-Digest for 20th October 2013

9. I installed the Whisker Menu for Xfce

   I just read about the Whisker Menu for Xfce at OMG! Ubuntu and installed it on my system from the Fedora repositories.

   While I’m happy with my panel on the left and the traditional Xfce Application Finder, I thought the Whisker Menu would be worth a try.

10. Special laptop keys with Linux

    Laptops often have special keystroke combinations for certain functions or commands

11. Bloated Audio Players? No Thanks!

    The term lightweight is a label attached to computer software which is relatively simpler or faster than its counterparts. Feature bloat is endemic in software especially commercial software. Often, the easiest way to persuade users to upgrade to the latest version is to add new spangly features. This happens with open source software (to a lesser degree), and open source music software is not immune to feature bloat. Music players can often seem to be designed for everything except actually listening to music with tons of bloat that you do not actually need.

12. In Depth Look at Linux’s Archiving and Compression Commands

13. Linux rsync command with practical examples

Summary: A quick note addressing complaints regarding “fragmentation” and “benevolent dictators”

THE schism — perhaps even the rivalry — between KDE and GNOME (or Qt and GTK) often overlooks the fact that both sides benefit from the other. The more they both advance, the more applications GNU/Linux have and the more compelling platform GNU/Linux becomes for more people. With bridges between these two toolkits and desktop environments it is evident that those who use GNOME and KDE as an example of maligned “fragmentation” simply misunderstand or berate GNU/Linux using misconceptions. For choice and freedom to be more than just marketing terms we do need to have competing (and quasi-collaborating) toolkits and desktops. What’s important is standards and copyleft.

“If many users are unhappy with a direction that some project takes, then it is probably that a large fork/branch will develop.”Many nice applications come with the latest GNOME (either core applications [1,2] or non-core ones [3]). Developers are free to do with these applications as they please [4,5], even port them to Qt if they like it better, so complaints like [6] sort of miss the point. Developers are not in the business of pleasing every user, but they should at least allow any single individual to take the project in any desired direction. If many users are unhappy with a direction that some project takes, then it is probably that a large fork/branch will develop. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. GNOME Settings Daemon 3.10.1 Fixes Memory Leaks

   The GNOME developers announced a few days ago that the first maintenance release of the stable GNOME Settings Daemon 3.10 package, a daemon run by all GNOME sessions to provide live access to configuration settings and the changes done to them, is available for download.

2. GNOME Control Center 3.10.1 Released with Multiple Improvements

   GNOME Control Center, GNOME’s main interface for configuration of various aspects of your desktop, is now at version 3.10.1.

3. GNOME CAKE 3.10 – Fully Baked, No Bugs

4. Learn how to compile from source Linux software with AbiWord 3

5. Writing a GNOME thumbnailer

   How does GNOME generate thumbnails for files? It uses a collection of programs called thumbnailers, each one generating thumbnails for a specific set of content-types of files. For example, totem-video-thumbnailer generates thumbnails for video files using GStreamer; evince-thumbnailer generates thumbnails for PDFs and other document files.

6. The Linuxsphere – Benevolent Dictators Need Not Apply

   The issue was improving Nautilus by bringing back the ability of adding color and texture to the background. For as long as I can remember, Gnome/Nautilus users have been able to set a background in this file manager.

Summary: GNOME is ditched by Cinnamon, which is yet another example of users and developers taking control in the interest of users

DEALING with varying user requirements is hard. There is no one-size-fits-all paradigm when it comes to desktop environments. Just as we require many types of vehicles (trucks, vans, motorcycles, etc.) we need to facilitate a variety of needs, which vary from person to person. Microsoft and Apple ignore this and they try to shoehorn people into their own restrictive environments. GNU/Linux is different. Development of KDE, the world’s most advanced desktop, carries on [1,2] and documentation improves as well [3]. The KDE Community Forums turns 5 [4] and new users come to KDE [5], which is — although it is debatable — better than GNOME when it comes to applications but not as a desktop for new users [6] (KDE is very advanced, too much for some). Cinnamon 2.0, in the mean time, is forking GNOME [7] and even ditching it [8]. It is now available in Ubuntu 13.10 [9], which is Mirless [10]. Many distributions still use classic GNOME [11] or modified GNOME [12], but what’s clear overall is that over time we are left with more choices of desktop environments. KDE itself has been forked to satisfy those who wish to keep the KDE3 experience. This is a strength, not a weakness. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE Commit-Digest for 6th October 2013

2. KDE Commit-Digest for 29th September 2013

3. Plasma Active Handbook released

   The Projectsite of the handbook is placed under: http://pactivehandbook.sf.net. There you can download a PDF in the english or german language. Also a XHTML version of the book is available in both languages there.

4. 5 Years of KDE Community Forums

5. Installed KDE via Kubuntu v13.04 – My First Thoughts

   I moved to Kubuntu early Sunday morning, and it was not without a few minor perils. I wanted a clean install, thus formatting /home was a must. I was coming from Linux Mint 14 XFCE to Kubuntu 13.04 which of course uses KDE as the default desktop manager. I really didn’t want any cross contamination in /home nor did I want to dual-boot. It was all in or nothing. So I chose the all in and I am glad I did.

6. KDE vs GNOME: Settings, Apps, Widgets

   Video: While one desktop appears clearly superior to the other, its rival offers some better apps for key uses.

7. Cinnamon 2.0 Desktop Is Readied For Release

   Linux Mint’s Cinnamon 2.0 desktop fork of the GNOME Shell has been tagged and is being readied for release.

8. Cinnamon 2.0 Ditches GNOME, Features Enhanced User and Window Management

   Cinnamon, the desktop shell using in Linux Mint, has finally released v2.0, which features new window tiling and snapping, along with enhanced user management options. And there are lots of other changes under the hood too, including a new backend that no longer requires GNOME.

9. Cinnamon 2.0 in Ubuntu 13.10 Screenshot Tour

   Cinnamon 2.0, a fork of GNOME 3 desktop environment, developed by Clement Lefebvre, the father of Linux Mint, has been released to critical acclaim and now you have a chance to see it working in Ubuntu 13.10.

10. Not so Saucy after all: Ubuntu reveals Mirless Salamander… and what, no Britney?

11. First Look at GNOME 3.10 on Arch Linux

    After approximately two weeks of testing, the Arch Linux developers promoted earlier today, October 7, the recent GNOME 3.10 desktop environment to the stable channels, allowing users to upgrade their six-month-old GNOME 3.8 installation.

12. SolusOS 2 Will Use a Custom GNOME 3.10 Desktop

    Thanks to a leaked screenshot on Google+, we’ve recently discovered that the upcoming and highly anticipated SolusOS 2 Linux operating system will have a darkish and highly modified version of the recently released GNOME 3.10 desktop environment.

Summary: Signs of encouraging progress in the GNOME project

The Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation recently spoke in an interview [1] with Andrew Gregory and Graham Morrison of Tux Radar. The GNOME desktop is finding more acceptance from users [2] and from developers [3,4] and as GNOME 3.10 comes near [5,6] with new changes and applications [7,8] it seems clear that GNOME’s future — just like KDE’s — is secured.

The “G” in GNOME stands for GNU and it seems safe to say that the project escaped the clutch of Mono and is now led by a person closely connected to the FSF (through the SFLC). Red Hat (through Fedora) is still the main steward. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Karen Sandler: full interview

   Andrew Gregory and Graham Morrison talk to Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the Gnome Foundation, and hear some rather more compelling arguments for software freedom than clever acronyms and numbering systems that start at 0 rather than 1.

2. The beauty of GNOME Shell

   Since its inception not long ago, the new GNOME 3.x series has confused some and frustrated others, but more often than not, it has also managed to conquer those few who actually got past the initial quirks and gave it a fair chance. Similarly, its desktop environment, simply dubbed Shell, left a lot to be desired in the early days, mostly because the customization options had been thrown out the window in favor of a to-the-point approach which meant to remove distractions. Unfortunately, such approach was certainly too closed to survive in the Linux realm.

3. It’s Now Easier Running Wayland Under GNOME-Session

   With another day comes more improvements to the Linux desktop running atop Wayland. While yesterday saw Enlightenment on Wayland work, today already is some GNOME Wayland activity ahead of the GNOME 3.10 release in just a few weeks time.

4. Frikin’ Awesome Apps (without AppData)

   In GNOME Software, we show a list of applications for each category that we think are frikin’ awesome. Some have AppData, and some don’t. For the ones that don’t yet have AppData it leaves the responsibility of writing the long description to the Linux community, where we can push the data back to upstream so that all the distributions can benefit. So far we’ve had a superb reaction from lots of upstream projects.

5. GNOME 3.10 Gets an Overhaul: Top 10 New Features

   The open-source GNOME desktop is one of the primary desktops in use on Linux operating systems today. The GNOME 3.10 desktop, which was officially released Sept. 25, provides users with a number of user interface enhancements as well as new applications and under-the-hood improvements for developers. In total, more than 30,000 changes were made in GNOME 3.10, with over 1,000 individuals contributing to the new release. On the user interface front, there is a new system status area that provides a more unified view of the user’s system. In terms of new software applications, the GNOME 3.10 release starts right at the beginning with a new “Software” application to help users to explore and find new software. As part of the release, GNOME developers have also introduced a new “Maps” application that pulls data from the open-source OpenStreetMap project. Plus, there is a new Web browser aptly named “Web” that advances GNOME’s browser technology, formerly known as Epiphany. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at what is new and what is improved in the open-source GNOME 3.10 desktop.

6. GNOME 3.10 in Fedora

   As usual, Fedora tracks GNOME releases closely. Last week, Fedora 20 Alpha shipped with a GNOME 3.10 prerelease, and today have just landed the final 3.10.0 builds, one day after the official upstream release.

7. GNOME “Flashback” Released, GNOME Panel 3.8

   This week prior to the GNOME 3.10 release also marked the release of GNOME-Panel 3.8 and GNOME-Flashback-Session 3.8. The “GNOME Flashback” project is about revitalizing the GNOME 3 “fallback” session experience found in earlier 3.x releases for cases where no 3D hardware acceleration was available.

8. GNOME Gets A Log Viewer For Systemd’s Journal

   There’s a new GNOME application that experienced its first release this morning: GNOME Logs. While there’s a lot of work left on the project, GNOME Logs is to serve as a centralized log viewer for the systemd journal on the GNOME desktop.

   The GNOME Logs program is a utility displaying detailed system event information that can be filtered, searched, and further analyzed in the investigation of system problems.

GNOME, as a desktop environment, suffered some backlash when the third branch came out. It’s similar to KDE when its fourth branch came out. But things appear to be changing for the better in GNOME [1] and a new release is fast approaching [2-6] under the leadership of Karen Sandler [7] who is a strong advocate of software freedom. GNOME Music is being introduced [8] and GNOME applications generally reach out to more environments like MATE and XFCE [9], not just KDE (through QtCurve and other bridges). Other GNOME projects [10,11] show signs of life in this age when we can easily forget GNOME or simply take it for granted, just like KDE.

Several years ago we criticised GNOME for its stance on Mono. After Miguel de Icaza had stepped down things gradually improved and GTK-based Mono-dependent applications mostly died (no longer maintained). Techrights has no opposition to GNOME or the GNOME Foundation. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Gnome 3 Love

   Anyway, Gnome 3 shell is everyone’s favorite punching bag. For us old-timers, it certainly is unusual in its approach to work flow. But, I tried to adapt to vanilla Gnome Shell. I really did. I don’t want to live in the past.

   Nope. Still don’t love the vanilla Gnome 3 experience.

2. CSDs came to stay in GNOME 3.10!

   Today I installed Fedora 20 (from Nightly Build) that comes with GNOME 3.10 Beta and it (Fedora) feels amazingly stable (except the really buggy installer) for a pre-alpha release.

3. GNOME Shell 3.10 Is Ready To Shine On Wayland

   GNOME Shell 3.9.92 was released this morning as the GNOME Shell 3.10 release candidate. With this latest release of the core GNOME 3 user-interface, the Wayland branch has been merged!

4. What Should You Expect from GNOME 3.10

   GNOME 3.10 should be released this month, on September 25, and every Linux users who uses it expects the unexpected, so we thought it would be a very good idea to preview some of its upcoming features.

5. GNOME Shell 3.10 RC Getting Ready for Full Wayland Support

6. Gnome upcoming features

   Gnome 3.10 is just about a week away and the upcoming features list of version 3.12 is already forming. What are the new features that will empower and extend Gnome’s usability on the “good ten” that’s coming, and what kind of new features are seeing complete fruition on the next version?

7. Interview: Karen Sandler (part 1)

   In Linux Format issue 176, Graham Morrison and Andrew Gregory spoke to Karen Sandler, executive director of the Gnome Foundation. We were so absorbed by what she had to say that we almost missed the free lunch in the canteen. Of the many subjects that the conversation touched upon (we’ll be putting the full interview up on TuxRadar soon), the most time-sensitive is the Gnome Outreach Programme For Women. This does pretty much what it says on the tin: it’s an initiative aimed at getting more women into free software, not just Gnome.

8. GNOME Music

9. GNOME Software on MATE and XFCE

   Long version: In the software application we have the problem where applications have the same name and summary, but are targeted against different desktops. We know when an app targets a specific desktop from the AppStream metadata (which currently uses a heuristic from the .desktop file) so we could filter these out client side. At the moment searching for notes gives you two similarly looking results results provided by two different applications: bijiben (GNOME) and xfce4-notes (XFCE). Also, because of the shared history, a lot of the MATE applications have the same name as the GNOME ones. This makes bad UI.

10. GNOME Break Timer: Week 13

    I’m nearing the end of a very busy few weeks, and getting very close to that soft pencils down date! With school starting up again this hasn’t been my most productive week on the GNOME Break Timer front, but I’m pretty happy with what’s been done.

11. AppData validation tool

    A upstream maintainers have contacted me about some kind of validation tool for AppData files. I’ve spent a couple of days creating and then packaging appdata-tools which includes the appdata-validate command. This returns non-zero if there are any syntax or style issues with the AppData file.

Summary: The real danger that the leading Linux-based operating system (Android) will cease to be free/libre

Autonomy of a nation depends on various factors which need to be pursued and assured. If your country is under the surveillance of another, then it is being controlled — determination-wise — by another. If the surveillance is bi-directional, as in the case of Russia and the United States for example, then neither country is in charge of another. Here in the UK we have at least two NSA bases (the ones we know about), whereas Britain has no army or surveillance bases in the US. It helps show who is in control. Today I travelled to Yorkshire, where protesters habitually go to an NSA base where they denounce US imperialism.

This rule extends to software. If the programmer can watch the user but the user cannot see the programmer or even the program’s code, then the user is essentially occupied. He or she has no control and the possibility of self determination is lowered. Espionage makes it possible for the software owner to weaken the user. Think how Google would cope if its infrastructure was Windows-based. It is not just a matter of immediate monetary cost. The hidden costs are rarely taken into account, but they matter.

Earlier this month Google and Qualcomm found themselves in hot water following a public resignation over the closing of Android. Google has since then retracted an apparent decision to go along with Qualcomm, but there is still no assurance that source code will be free in the future. This is a serious cause for concern.

Back in the days it seemed inevitable that one Linux-based platform or another would dominate the mobile world [1] and even expand to desktops [2]. It was hard to tell which one because several multi-vendor alliances were created, decoupled, merged, etc. Some platforms, like WebOS for instance, were proprietary (except the kernel, Linux). Some had GNU, some did not [3,4]. Some were Web-oriented, whereas others encouraged development of native applications. Google clearly won this race and is, for now, the market leader. Almost a dozen other Linux-based platforms are still contenders and all of them are now Free software (or claim to be, even if source code is not yet publicly available).

Earlier this week there was a discussion on the Web about whether or not Android qualifies as a “Linux distro” (can’t add “GNU” in this case). Some said that proprietary programs on Android disqualify it. Whatever the case is, Android itself — the platform — is Free software in a very weird, Google-like sense. Like other FOSS projects from Google, development is done privately and code released periodically. If new versions of Android can be ‘leaked’, then we know development is not quite so open to the community (non-OHA parties).

The final point to be made here is that in order to empower users and developers now that Android is a universal platform (or rapidly getting there) we should keep pressure on Google to keep Android free/libre. The wider the usage of Android, the smaller the proportion of users who care about freedom will get. Then, Google will be able to reason about de-emphasising FOSS and community participation in the same way canonical did. Currently, the only reason Android is somewhat respectful of some technology rights like privacy is that its free nature permits derivatives like Replicant to compete on key terms and compel OHA partners to catch up. If Android was ever to shut out ‘foreign’ developers, then we would expect Android to become more user-hostile and therein lies a principal argument for software freedom. If malicious features can be removed, one developer or another will make sure they do get removed. This limits what companies like Google can get away with.

Free software is not about price or even about enabling every single user to modify his or her software. Software freedom helps us assure that competition acts as a regulator against malicious features. The less free/libre the software is, the more menacing the software will become over time. Just watch what Vista did with DRM and Vista 8 does with restricted boot and other malicious ‘features’ which treat the user like an enemy. █

From the news:

1. Open Source Mobile OS: The Four Contenders

   Google and Apple currently enjoy a virtual duopoly in the worldwide smartphone market, with Android and iOS commanding 79 percent and 14.2 percent of sales respectively, according to Gartner.

   Their nearest challenger is Windows Phone with 3.3 percent and BlackBerry is back further still, but such dominance has not been enough to dissuade four new mobile operating systems from believing they can upset the market leaders.

2. HDMI-stick mini-PC runs Android on quad-core ARM SoC

   China-based Ugoos announced a quad-core, HDMI-stick style mini-PC available for a special price of $65 (normally $100). The Ugoos UM2 runs Android 4.2 on a quad-core Rockchip RK3188 ARM Cortex-A9 SoC, offers an HDMI port, WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0, and provides dual USB 2.0 host ports for external peripheral connection.

3. MeeGo Startup Jolla Closes Pre-Sales Campaign For Its First Phone, Booking Orders Of Up To 50,000 Units

   Jolla, the Finnish startup comprised of ex-Nokians that’s building its own MeeGo-based smartphone platform and phone hardware has closed out a pre-sales campaign for the device it showed off in May. Thing is, it’s not saying how many phones are in this first pre-order batch — so it’s not really saying very much about the level of demand it’s seeing (or not seeing).

4. Tizen, your next HTML5 mobile operating system

   The open source Tizen operating system could be your next mobile device experience.

Summary: Having conquered the China-controlled Taiwan and the two Korean giants, Microsoft now goes deeper into China and demands payments for Linux-powered products

A few years ago we found out Microsoft’s strategy for patent extortion, thanks to a legal leak. The company behind this leak continues to protest to its government about the USPTO and contrary to what it said after Microsoft had bribed it, it continues with Android, not Windows, at least based on reports such as this. For those who cannot quote remember, B&N (Barnes & Noble) brought out the NDA-concealed extortion proposition (nastygram) with a list of patents included therein and then it got bribed by Microsoft for silence and lack of further legal challenges.

Microsoft is worried about its total defeat in the mobile world. “MS percent of the US market is larger than its percentage of the World market,” tells us a reader. So Microsoft decided to extort Android, maybe even bribing companies to make it appear feasible (financial details are never disclosed, but it’s about FUD). It recently went after Foxconn, based in Taiwan where patent collusion might be brewing. We don’t know if Foxconn pays anything. Now Microsoft got a patent deal with ZTE, another Chinese company. One site says:

For several years now, Microsoft has been asserting that any company making Android phones owes it money, because Microsoft has patents that cover various aspects of those phones.

Last week, the company said that the Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn, which makes 40 percent of consumer electronics worldwide including a variety of Android and Chrome-powered products, had agreed to license its patents. Today, the company announced a patent-licensing deal with another huge Asian electronics company: Chinese telecom ZTE.

A reader sent us “more coverage” such as this, but there is nothing to suggest they pay Microsoft. Remember that another Chinese giant, which reportedly spurned Microsoft’s attempts to tax Android phones, rejects the US market and refuses to sign such a patent deal for Android. Disguising extortion as “licence” is not an acceptable business practice. Microsoft increasingly uses proxies like Nokia, too, either to litigate in Europe or to feed patent trolls such as MOSAID. Nokia itself recently attacked a Taiwan-based company, HTC, in several places in Europe.

Over at IDG, software patents promotion continues with lobbyists for this cause, such as Martin Goetz [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], getting a European platform. Shame on IDG. The patent lawyers, a tiny minority of the overall populations, already have their platforms where they try too find rarity like developers who favour software patents. Groklaw, despite its strength in this area, also gives a platform for trolls but only as means of balance.

In order to stop Microsoft’s patent extortion we need either to kill software patents or take Microsoft executives to prison for RICO Act violations. In a system controlled by corporations, both are hard goals to attain. █

Summary: Response to claims that GNU/Linux is “hard”

Difficult it sure can be to become a high-speed racing/Formula 1 driver. Arduous it is to become an advanced computer user. Virtual desktops are hard to grasp conceptually or practically for those who never saw them in a Microsoft-dominant computer lab, so how can one expect to popularise multiple desktop activities the way KDE does?

The concept of extreme abstraction and removal of features has been popularised more recently by the advancement of smartphones and tablets (I write many of my posts while walking in the streets with my tablet). The general philosophy is that users are dumb and they should be treated as such. The problem with this is not that it’s insulting (in disguise) but that it discourages learning and self improvement.

In the past decade, with the hype of ‘i’ things gaining a foothold, the class of ‘simplicity elitists’ got a lot of mindshare. The idea of excessive simplification was famously chastised by Linus Torvalds who used the “Nazi” word to call attention to the reason he was leaving GNOME. Sometimes more is less, but it has become a stubborn cliché which is hard to leave behind.

When I was a teenager and used KDE the environment was still a tad cluttered and many of the presented settings I could not make sense of. KDE had already gained a reputation as desktop made by geeks, for geeks. By the time KDE3 was out and more so in KDE4 (once many bugs were out of the way) most of the daunting settings had already been ‘shelved’ in Advanced menus and the GUI laid out more intuititively. But the stereotype never died. To this date, one of the prominent patterns of Linux FUD is that it’s hard. Well, the kernel sure is hard, but the user barely ever interacts with it. A command-line user interacts a lot with GNU and GUI users often prefer GNOME or KDE.

When people tell you that “Linux is hard” ask them, “which desktop?”

My father had no issues when I switched him from Windows XP to KDE and he is not even so technical; he is a store manager who likes sports. Since the real barrier is that Linux desktops are different we should ask ourselves not how we make GNU/Linux easier but how to make people easier to change. It’s not about coercion but about diplomacy. People need to be patient when they adapt. Is GNU/Linux hard? It’s hard for impatient people to adapt to. █

Originally posted in Linux Advocates

Summary: Now that Microsoft controls Nokia and its patents portfolio there is more direct hostility towards Android, this time with action rather than just words and directly rather than through Microsoft/Nokia-armed trolls like MOSAID

Apple recently suffered a bit of a blow in the anti-Android litigation war, which a US judge too is eager to put constraints on. Android is growing very rapidly even in China; a vast place like Africa, where Nokia has long enjoyed some low-end devices domination, is now being penetrated by Android. Samsung Rex series is poised to take on Nokia in low-end segments according to this recent report, so we are hardly surprised to see Nokia joining Apple in the war against Samsung. Here is one article about it and another about Nokia, now led by one of Gates’ cronies (Gates is disappointed by Microsoft’s “mistake” and lack of innovation in mobile) making not a rational decision but an idealogical one, made by a mole who surrounded himself with more moles after he had infiltrated the company. Having, together with Microsoft’s involvement, armed patent trolls like MOSAID (we should boycott Nokia for this), Nokia is now showing yet more malice. To quote: “Nokia and Apple are competitors when it comes to moving hardware off the shelves, and the two companies even opposed each other in a patent trial in 2009 (ending in Apple settling with Nokia for an undisclosed sum). But Nokia has been vocal about supporting its patent rights recently, even discussing its decision to sell some of its intellectual property to patent-holding company Mosaid at the Federal Trade Commission in December.”

Here is an earlier report about it:

Apple vs. Samsung initially ended with a billion-dollar verdict in favor of Apple, but there have been plenty of wrinkles since. This week brought about another, as Nokia filed an amicus brief on behalf of Apple, Inc. in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the brief filed Monday, Nokia asked the court to permit permanent injunctions on the sale of Samsung phones that were found to infringe Apple’s patents.

Post-trial proceedings haven’t been as kind to Apple after the company was awarded $1.05 billion in damages in August. US District Judge Lucy Koh nearly halved those damages in a ruling on Friday, and in December she denied Apple a permanent injunction against Samsung which would have barred the sale of Samsung phones found to be infringing.

We have long argued that Nokia, Apple, and Microsoft are very much aligned against Android. They engage in patent-stacking. According to this new report, Microsoft seems to have pretty much taken over the whole of Nokia already:

Nokia announced that it expects to receive more in support payments from Microsoft this year than it pays the software company for licensing its Windows Phone operating system. Nokia provided more details on the terms of the long-term cooperation in its SEC filing on 2012 results. The Finnish company said the support payments, which amounted to USD 250 million per quarter last year, will “slightly exceed” the minimum software royalties it pays Microsoft in 2013.

The matter of fact is, Microsoft pretty much abducted Nokia without ever paying for a takeover. And there has been massive regulatory failure to spot and counter that. What we have now is a patent cartel determined to destroy Android. Everyone should be concerned about it because everyone loses from it, except perhaps managers of the cartel. █

Apple must be nervous. Its fake apology (court-mandated retraction, for lying about Android) is rather telling. I convinced several friends and also my wife to buy Android and avoid Apple simply because Android is better; it’s no longer just a matter of price. The bad PR Apple has been getting for its frivolous lawsuits is not helping either. Here is a new example of bad PR:

Apple was recently slapped with a court order in UK, after losing an appeal, to apologize on its UK website that Samsung did not copy it’s iPad design. Apple has complied with the judgment and posted a link at the bottom of their UK website which takes a user to the Samsung / Apple UK judgment page.

But all the news sites we come across slam Apple with headlines like “Apple Publishes Non-Apology To Samsung On Its Website To Comply With U.K. Court Ruling” or this article:

So Apple posted an ‘apology’ on its website today, and as you can probably guess, it’s not much of an apology at all.

“9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple’s registered design No. 0000181607-0001,” Apple’s half-arsed apology reads, although there’s no mention of the word “sorry”, or even the word “regrets”, anywhere to be seen.

The cheeky apology goes on to point out that Samsung didn’t copy the Ipad because it isn’t “cool” and uses a quote from the UK judge that says Samsung’s tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design”.

By not apologising Apple has only gotten yet more negative publicity. Pamela Jones, who used to defend Apple, calls it “bratty”:

Apple has posted on its website, as ordered by the UK court, and upheld on appeal, a rather ungracious notice that Samsung did not copy Apple according to the UK court (but Apple adds it still thinks it does and other courts agree with it). I would like to show it to you, so you can see the kind of legal advice Apple is following, because what the UK court held was that nobody would imagine that a Samsung phone is an iPhone.

Apple did not provide you with a link to the order telling Apple to publish a notice on its websites either, so here it is. Ask yourself as you read it and then read Apple’s notice if it followed the order’s spirit or even its letter, except in the most strained way.

It is rather amusing to see this. It helps validate stereotypes about Apple. Since Microsoft destroyed Nokia — a tragic story in its own right — and took it down to obscurity we find that Android is marching strong and Apple sales disappoint. Android is growing at Apple’s expense in tablets, not just smartphones, with high profits and an impressive sales rate. Dominic Kennedy writes:

Samsung has maintained its leadership position in the worldwide smartphone market, posting another record quarter for itself and the industry, and more than double the total volume of Apple. It’s the first time since 4Q09 that a single company has held more than 31% market share in a single quarter.

Gartner, typically an Android- and Linux-hostile firm, admits that Android will also beat Windows, but it says it can take four years. This is nonsense. Android is activated about half a billion times per year (and growing). It can outpace Windows by the end of next year in terms of installbase. In terms of sales, it might already be the number one OS.

Jim Zemlin recently noted Android’s amazing growth. It brought Linux to many fingertips, but let us go further and aspire or push for freedom at the applications and hardware level, not just the OS. Peripheral networks, e.g. carriers, spectrum, are another key area for activism. Techrights intends to take it up a notch when it turns six, hopefully with more coverage just like in the old days. Celebrations are premature in a world full of moles, corrupt politicians, and a patent system turned into government-imposed protectionism (e.g. against South Korean firms). █

Summary: More evidence of a malicious trend at patent trolls like Acacia (hiring Microsoft veterans), not to mention patent trolls that are entirely created by Microsoft veterans

The abusive monopolist from Redmond patents yet more nonsense as the fight against Linux and Android intensifies. Microsoft sues the Google-owned part of Motorola, as we noted the other day.

It is a Google lawsuit and some news sites point this out as they ought to:

Microsoft Corp said on Friday it plans to add Google Inc as a defendant in Germany in one of its patent actions against Google’s phone maker, Motorola Mobility, marking the first time the two tech giants have come into direct legal conflict over Google’s Android mobile software.
Microsoft contends that Google’s Android infringes its software patents but so far has pursued handset makers rather than Google itself for payment of royalties.

This is not the first such lawsuit against Google if one counts patent proxies. Let us also remember Nokia and MOSAID, not to mention Acacia which takes yet more Microsoft staff now: “Acacia Research Corporation, one of the most litigious and notorious patent trolls wasting valuable space on this planet, today announced that it has rounded out its management team with the appointment of Paul Bawel as Vice President.

“The move is notable, because Bawel has over 13 years of patent licensing experience, having previously worked as Sector IP Law Director at Motorola. Most recently, he was a Senior Attorney for Microsoft, where he was responsible for managing patent and IP issues for the Windows Phone division.”

Perfect position from which to sue Google?

Recall other notorious patent trolls and some of the latest from the world’s biggest patent troll, created with heavy Microsoft involvement. Here are some new details: “In an initial assessment of the patent, which was applied for in 2008, Michael Weinberg from the Public Knowledge digital rights organisation told Technology Review that Intellectual Ventures, led by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, is attempting to secure the ownership of a Digital Rights Management (DRM) system for 3D printing. The patent is “very broad” and also includes printing on “skin, textiles, edible substances, paper and silicon”, said Weinberg.”

This troll, along with Paul Allen’s, has already targeted Android. It is not just Microsoft suing Android; it uses proxies too.

Judge Posner [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] has just publishes an article titled “Patent Trolls Be Gone”. In it, Posner suggests a fix for this type of scenario and this new interview helps show others from the legal system who got fed up with it all:

Having formerly practiced as a patent attorney and advocated before the US Patent and Trademark Office with Darby and Darby, Cheryl Milone has become quite an expert on all things “patent”. She now sits affront of her 5 year old startup company: Article One Partners. Article One Partners is the world’s largest patent validation community. What makes Article One Partners so unique is that the company adds a crucial level of review to the US patent system – strengthening legitimate patents and reducing unjust patent monopolies (surely she doesn’t mean us Patent Trolls right?). Upon further discovery of Article One’s success, we we’re fortunate to have an opportunity to discuss Article One Partners, Patents, Patent Trolls, the Patent System with none other than the patent expert herself – Cheryl Milone.

We ought to note that this new site, patenttrolls.org, is worth subscribing to. The site has been supporting/endorsing our work. The goals overlap to a degree. █